Unicorn Vengeance

by Claire Delacroix

  The minstrel’s hair was a most uncommon orange color and hung long. His garb was shabby, but despite the oddity of his appearance, he summoned a most charming smile for the onlookers. Genevieve suspected he had no hearth himself to which he might return this night and she felt a curious kinship with him, for all his unfamiliarity.

  Still his voice was beautiful. She could not readily decipher the tale, for his words flowed too swiftly for her. Mayhap he spoke another tongue, though it seemed that Genevieve alone did not understand. The onlookers were enthralled, and many appeared to be struck dumb by his tale.

  Genevieve noted but one disturbance, and she glanced up at the interruption to find a tall man, distinguished of carriage and silver of mane, pushing his way through the assembly. His manner was that of a man of import, his concern with naught but his own interest. The red cross of the Temple blazed across the breast of his white tabard. A small retinue awaited him on the periphery of the crowd, and a proud silver destrier was held at the ready for his return. Genevieve knew he must be a high ranking officer in the Order of the Templars.

  His gaze was avid as he watched the minstrel, and well it seemed that he hung on every word, as though he would devour the tale. The crowd left a minute space around this older Templar, and she wondered briefly at his station, that he should be of repute among the people.

  Then the minstrel raised his voice and she forgot all else. When he sustained the last note with a flourish and took a deep bow that had clearly been practiced, more than one silver denier struck the ground before him. Genevieve gasped, her gaze greedy as she tried to count the coins before he collected them all.

  She might have spoken to the minstrel, had she not glimpsed the cold avarice in his eyes as he scrambled for his coins. The change of expression surprised her and she realized, rather late, that his charm had been but a cloak readily donned for his audience.

  Genevieve turned away with the rest of the crowd now returning to their various occupations even as she tried to make sense of what she had seen. The Templar strode back to his party and swung into his saddle, his brow drawn in a frown as he gave his spurs to his beast.

  Silver for a song, indeed, Genevieve mused. The idea had merit in itself, even if the singer’s character was less wholesome than she might have hoped. Genevieve could not sing, but she had her lute. She tapped its round belly speculatively as she walked.

  Mayhap it could earn her enough to fill her own belly. The possibility fairly made her dizzy. ‘Twas true she had a quest to fulfill here, but with her belly hollow, she could not consider what to do with any skill.

  First Genevieve had to eat.

  She had but to find a spot in which to settle and play. One well trafficked, where she might be readily seen. Flushed with excitement, Genevieve wound her way through the streets, selecting and discarding locations with lightning speed.

  Quite suddenly, she came into a square that was dominated by a high tower opposite. Indeed the tower was taller than any she had yet seen, and she gaped at it for a long moment before she saw the walls that rose high around it.

  Some establishment of repute was clearly trapped within those walls, which surrounded a goodly number of buildings in addition to the tower. A moat encircled the walls, much to Genevieve’s surprise, for they were within Paris itself. This solidly built edifice looked more to be a structure one might find isolated in the wilderness.

  ‘Twas busy here, despite the imposing walls, yet she could find refuge from passing feet against a far wall. ‘Twould suit her purpose well, she decided with an assessing eye. The gate stood opposite and people flowed through it in both directions. Noble people, by their garb. Wealthy people. Mayhap kindly folk were within.

  Mayhap she might readily earn a meal. Her heart overflowing with optimism, Genevieve found a sheltered spot in plain view. She unwrapped the lute from its protective blanket and examined it carefully for any sign of damage gained in its travels. Genevieve knew full well that she was but delaying the moment she was coming to dread as fears multiplied in her mind.

  What if no one listened? What if they did not hold the lute in regard here in the north? Her examining fingers found no new blemish on the instrument, whose surface she knew as well as her own skin, though they moved with a quickness that revealed her agitation.

  The lute was fine. Genevieve breathed a sigh of relief and sat down carefully on her cloak. She swallowed nervously as the crowd brushed past her and wondered whether she was being foolish.

  Even if they did not stop or listen, playing would soothe her spirits. It always had. And Paris unsettled her with its noise and activity. That conviction alone made her choice.

  Blind to all around her, Genevieve bent over the instrument and coaxed a tune from its reluctant strings. Mute it had been for too many days, and for an instant she feared that she might have lost her touch.

  But nay. Genevieve closed her eyes as she smiled at the rising sound, reassured by its familiar beauty. She imagined the wind at Montsalvat, the way it tore through her hair as she stood on the high walls, and her fingers took on a grace that eluded them in all other facets of her life.

  Naught did she hear but the music, and indeed, it wound its very magic into her soul. It tempted her smile to broaden, it recalled the craggy hills around her home, it reminded her of the taste of the salt in the wind. It caressed her, it was the lover she had never known.

  The music was everything, just as it always had been. When she played, naught else mattered in her world. Though indeed Genevieve wrought the sound herself, ‘twas as separate from her as though she but released it from its prison.

  She was lost in a spell of her own making before half a dozen heartbeats had passed. Alzeu and his murderer were forgotten. Genevieve rocked as the lute sang its haunting tune, her fingers plucking at the familiar strings to coax sweeter and yet sweeter sounds from them.

  ‘Twas this she had been born to do, and naught else could trouble her when she played.

  * * *

  The familiar stench of Paris beckoned Wolfram across the last few miles. He spied the walls of the city that came closest to home for him these days with no small measure of relief. Its pungency assaulted him as he rode beneath the gate and he inhaled deeply of its welcome odor, glad to be within the city’s embrace once more. A sense of urgency assailed him, as it always did when he first entered the city’s gates, and that old desire to be secure within the heavy walls of the Temple itself set his heels digging into his tired beast’s side.

  ‘Twas there alone that he was safe, fed and clothed, secure from the fear of pursuit. ‘Twas for that sense of safety alone that he did what he did and fulfilled his orders.

  Indeed, there was naught else he could do to earn his place within those walls.

  Mere moments passed before Wolfram spied the great double donjon of the Temple towering over the walls of the Ville Neuve du Temple, as solidly reassuring as anything he had ever known. He permitted himself a silent sigh of relief.

  Safe again.

  A pair of brother knights in full habit rode out from the gate as Wolfram approached. Their appearance, so different from his own, served to give Wolfram his usual pang of jealousy, though he stifled it with a speed born of habit. No right had Wolfram to wear the distinctive white habit of the Order, with its blazing red cross. He was not knighted, a legacy of his illegitimate past, though he had wanted to be knighted with every fiber of his being as long as he could recall.

  Still, he had joined the chivalric Order that possessed his dreams, though he had been welcome only as a sergeant.

  As ‘twas, he could not risk donning even the plain brown mantle of a sergeant brother for fear his presence might be noted. Dressed like any other traveler he was, for ‘twas part of his task to blend into the secular world. He checked about himself, though he knew what he would find before he ever looked.

  None appeared to have even noted his presence.

  Wolfram stood out in no crowd. Anonymity was the
key not only to Wolfram’s success, but also to his very survival.

  ‘Twas no more than his due to be alone, though increasingly he found that burden difficult to bear. Aging he was, and the solitude of his life chafed within him more and more with each passing day.

  Wolfram’s gaze rose reluctantly to the gates of that place he called home. His vow to obey had Wolfram granted, and he supposed he was no more lonely than anyone else within this world. Traffic passed through the gates, those sworn to the Templars readily distinguishable from their secular guests.

  A twinge of dissatisfaction coursed unexpectedly through Wolfram that he could not openly confess his allegiance. ‘Twas an irony of his task that outside the Temple he disappeared into the populace, but here, in the place that came closest to his home, Wolfram appeared as an outsider.

  He blended into the crowd everywhere but belonged nowhere. The thought had not occurred to Wolfram before and he found it did not sit comfortably. Like the wolf he was named for was he, he realized, for his life was solitary above all else. He belonged nowhere and none belonged with him. His loyalty was to the Order alone.

  Wolfram shook the whimsy that clung to his mind like Montsalvat’s fog. A cluster of travelers approached the Temple gates from the other direction, their steeds clearly tired after a day of riding, their riders spattered with mud and no less tired themselves. Neither mud nor muted garb could conceal that these were nobles, for their posture and their retinue revealed their ilk. ‘Twas clear they made for the haven of the Temple, as well. No doubt had Wolfram that ‘twas the reputed safety of the Temple that beckoned them, and indeed they could well afford to pay the price.

  He wondered whether they owed any coin to the house. Only the Master knew for certain, but Wolfram would not have been surprised. Mayhap ‘twould have been more pertinent to consider how much they owed to the house. He allowed them to enter the gate before him, holding his steed to one side as their retainers passed into the sheltered courtyard.

  ‘Twas then the snare was unexpectedly cast about him.

  The plaintive sounds of a lute played with consummate skill carried to Wolfram’s ears as he paused outside the familiar gates.

  A lute. The very sound prompted him to close his eyes against a rush of recollection. He swallowed hard, then glanced over his shoulder, seeking out the sound.

  ‘Twas only when the travelers had passed that he spotted the woman sitting on the far side of the square before the Temple gates. She bent over the instrument, oblivious of all around her as she picked out an enchanting tune.

  Well it seemed that once he permitted himself to listen, Wolfram could not turn away. The tune was haunting. It wound into his ears and teased him with a memory just beyond reach. The music taunted him to listen, to halt the merest instant longer, that he might recall some forgotten golden moment. His steed flicked his ears, but seemed disinclined to move, as well.

  The pair lingered there for a long moment, simply feeding on the heady richness of the sound.

  The sky shaded to the indigo of twilight, a last ruddy blush from the sun tinging the western horizon above the buildings. A bite was there in the air, a tinge of autumn and the winter yet to come that prompted one to shiver. Yet Wolfram was oblivious of all, so transfixed was he by the music.

  When the woman bent lower and he saw the tangle of ebony hair tumble from her hood, he could not have kept himself from dismounting. Her hair gleamed with the rich luster of silk from the Orient in the fading light, and he wondered how ‘twould feel against his fingers. The music lured Wolfram closer and tempted him to look at a woman for the first time in his days.

  And look he did. So different was she from the rough men with whom he spent his life, and Wolfram’s gaze devoured her daintiness. Her bones were delicate and her flesh was fairer and clearly of a finer ilk than his own. She was petite, the breadth of her shoulders much smaller than that of even the boys squired to the Order, and Wolfram was stuck by how like a gentle bird she was.

  A gentle bird who sang with the sweet voice of a lute.

  And that hair. Never had he seen the like. It poured from her hood and spilled over her shoulders, concealing her face, her arm, part of the lute. Like a dark river ‘twas, and it moved and glistened in the fading light as though it could not be restrained. Never had Wolfram believed hair could be of such abundance, such gloss, such a color. Indeed, it seemed to have a life of its own, the way it moved as she played. ‘Twas irrational, this compelling urge to finger those dark strands, but the music swept all doubts from Wolfram’s mind.

  To approach her would bring him closer to that magical sound, no small thing, though Wolfram would not try to fathom why the music moved him so. The woman did not even look up as he approached, and he watched her fingers dance across the strings, feeling himself a voyeur though indeed she played in a public place.

  * * *

  ‘Twas the nicker of a horse alone that interrupted her thoughts. Genevieve glanced up like a startled doe, surprised to find the square fallen into darkness. She shivered in the chill of the evening, freezing in place when she realized that a man stood silently before her.

  Silhouetted against the twilight sky he was, and so still that she wondered if indeed he was real. The bustle of the crowd had faded away, leaving him alone before her, his horse just behind. Genevieve knew he watched her, though she could not discern his features in the shadows. The scent of countless evening meals rode above the scent of Paris itself, and Genevieve could not look away.

  Something unnerving there was about his stare. Indeed, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled beneath its intensity, and Genevieve could not have urged her fingers to stir for any price.

  It seemed that all of Paris held its breath and waited.

  Suddenly the man stepped forward and into a chance ray of light. The fairness of his flaxen hair surprised her, but she dismissed her heart’s whimsical lurch out of hand. Many blondes there must be in the north, she reasoned, though her pulse began to pound in her ears with uncharacteristic vigor. He fumbled in his tabard, then glanced up.

  Genevieve gasped to find his eyes were palest gray. Pale eyes, pale hair. Indeed, his very face was etched indelibly within her mind.

  ‘Twas him! ‘Twas the very man she sought who stood before her!

  Well it seemed that Genevieve’s mind froze motionless at the shock. Then it began to gallop. What was he doing here? Did she but dream, or had she miraculously guessed aright and found him? Against all odds it seemed, yet despite her blinking in disbelief, his solid figure remained before her. Genevieve barely heard the tinkle of the coin hitting the cobblestones as she fought to make sense of the evidence before her eyes.

  The numbness of shock was abruptly replaced by the fear of not knowing how to proceed. Indeed, she had scarce dared to believe she might ever lay eyes upon him. What should she do? What should she say? Naught came instantly to mind, and Genevieve struggled to decide how to handle a situation she had thought herself hopeless to engineer. Well had she despaired of ever seeing this man again, but now he stood directly before her.

  And she was too dumbfounded to even speak. Genevieve fancied that he almost smiled, as though he understood her predicament, before he turned away. Impossible ‘twas, yet she could not completely stifle her fear that those pale eyes had seen the secret pledge buried deep within her.

  Turned away! Too late her mind made sense of what she saw.

  Nay! Genevieve could not let him leave! He was astride his horse and through the gates opposite before she managed to rise to her feet. Too much ‘twas to imagine that she might lay eyes upon him again! An opportunity spun of gold had Dame Fortune granted Genevieve, but she had done naught of merit with the gift!

  “Sir! I would speak with you a moment!” she cried, but to no avail. Either the stranger did not hear her or he chose to ignore her, for he rode away undeterred.

  Where was he going? How would she find him again? Genevieve ran in pursuit. By the time she reached the
gates opposite, he had disappeared into the grip of the twisted streets within. As she strained to catch up with him, a portly man stepped squarely into her path and blocked her way.

  “What is your business within the Temple?” the gatekeeper demanded tersely. Genevieve might have brushed past him, but the man would not be evaded. She danced to one side and the other impatiently, but still he persistently blocked her path, a frown darkening his brow.

  “I must speak to that man!” she insisted wildly. The keeper folded his arms across his chest.

  “I cannot let you pass without knowing your business here,” he maintained stonily. Genevieve sighed with frustration and peered over the man’s shoulder, only to find that her quarry had melted into the shadows within the gates as surely as though she had not seen him at all.

  “Is it not enough that I would speak with that one?” she asked, knowing the answer all the while. Genevieve strained her ears but heard naught even of his horse’s hooves. The keeper shook his head and impatience flooded through her.

  “Why did you let him pass without challenge?” she demanded in annoyance.

  “His business I know,” the keeper said flatly.

  Genevieve regarded the man in shock. Alzeu’s killer was known within the Temple? But he wore no mark of the Order. Genevieve’s mind raced as she recalled every rumor she had heard about the mysterious knights.

  The Templars were widely rumored to have a deft hand with poison. She saw the blackened bloodstone again in her mind’s eye and wondered how many of those rumors were indeed truth. Had someone hired the Templars to dispatch Alzeu? But why? Genevieve eyed the keeper, but he did not confide in her further.

  “Now, what of yours?” he demanded.

  Hers? Her business here. What business could she possibly have within the Temple? Something Genevieve had to contrive afore her quarry was lost within. Indeed she could not trust to chance that she might encounter him again.